


190. trading heartbeats

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [239]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9908474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Honestly if it wasn’t an emergency Cosima would be sort of fascinated by it; it’s the true test of nature-nurture, isn’t it? If Sarah is in Helena’s body, and Helena is in Sarah’s body, and those bodies are almost thesamebody—





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: reference to self-harm]

“But you can put us back,” says Helena – shit. Says Sarah. Says Sarah in Helena’s voice, which is trying to be Sarah’s voice, which is full of Sarah’s fear. Honestly if it wasn’t an emergency Cosima would be sort of fascinated by it; it’s the true test of nature-nurture, isn’t it? If Sarah is in Helena’s body, and Helena is in Sarah’s body, and those bodies are almost the _same_ body—

“Cos,” says Sarah again. The word scrapes off of Helena’s tongue, stumbling through the accent. She looks exhausted, surly; it’s a weird look on Helena’s face, which is all stretched out from bigger emotions. Sarah keeps trying to fidget, looking at the massively pregnant belly, and frowning. Her fingers, she keeps saying, feel wrong.

“Sorry,” Cosima says. “So the thing is I don’t – know? _Exactly_ what the process was here, and if I did know that would definitely be a _start_ , okay, so once me and Scotty figure out how it happened we can totally get going on how to—”

“You don’t know,” Sarah says.

“We don’t know,” Cosima says. She twists her ring around her finger, adds a useless “Sorry.”

“Shite,” Sarah sighs.

“Yeah,” Cosima says. “Pretty much.”

* * *

Helena takes the news with empty eyes and frowns at Sarah’s hands. She keeps cradling her stomach, hands hovering anxiously in empty space. “What about my babies,” she says.

“They’re fine,” Cosima says, “We did tests, Sarah was freaked about it too. They’re gonna be totally okay.”

Helena sucks her lips between her teeth, frowns some more. “Is Sarah mad,” she says.

“Yeah,” Cosima says, “but that’s…Sarah, you know?”

Helena shakes her head: she obviously doesn’t know.

“Uh,” Cosima says. “She just – gets mad at things? It doesn’t mean she’s mad at you, _sestra_.”

“Do not call me this,” Helena says quietly. Sarah has clung tenaciously to her own accent, but Helena seems stuck in a midway point between the British teeth in her mouth and her own Ukrainian tongue. Is she trying to be Sarah? That would be tragic, but also sort of adorable. Cosima tilts her head to the side, but just sees either Sarah or Helena. She doesn’t see a middleground.

Then she blinks, remembers Helena had said something. “Oh,” she says, “yeah, of course, sorry, didn’t mean to – take it.”

“I know,” Helena says. She hunches her shoulders, protective of nothing.

(Her shoulders. Cosima stumbling in on Sarah in the bathroom, craning to look at her back in the mirror: _I just wanted to know why it was itching. Thought she was getting better_.)

“I think maybe it is my fault,” Helena says. “Because. Sometimes. I wanted—” she stops. She tilts Sarah’s head up to look at Cosima, eyes kitten-earnest. “I prayed,” she says, “to whoever is listening, so we would go back. To where we were. But we are still here. So maybe my heart is praying the wrong way, and that is why we are broken.”

“Hey, Helena,” Cosima says, kneeling down to put one hand on her knee – and Helena flinches, and Cosima remembers (again) that the body isn’t Sarah’s. She takes her hand off hastily. “It’s not your fault, okay? Trust me, if we all got the things we prayed for…” Her brain spirals and then she turns it off, and she’s grinning back at Helena again. “I’d have a _way_ bigger lab.”

Helena flicks the corner of her mouth up, drops it again. It’s the most like Sarah she’s looked so far: disbelieving. “I know,” she says. “It was science.”

“Yeah, unfortunately,” Cosima says. “Cruel mistress.”

“Mm,” Helena says, and reaches for her belly again, and Cosima has to watch her remember – again – that there is nothing there.

* * *

They don’t like being in the same room as each other. Helena keeps her eyes glued to her own belly; Sarah doesn’t look at Helena at all. Cosima leaves them in separate parts of the lab while she goes and gets coffee – but when she comes back they’re sitting near each other, Helena’s Sarah’s hands splayed desperately on Sarah’s Helena’s belly. Her head is tilted, eyes darting frantic as she listens for something she can’t hear anymore.

The twins are talking to each other, but Cosima can’t pick up much from the stairs: _didn’t miss it – scared – don’t want to – hurts – sorry – better than – sorry_. She lingers. The coffee burns her palms, but she doesn’t drop it. She watches the tentative curl of Sarah’s fingers, the way Helena holds them gentle. Were they that gentle when they held Kira? Or is that tenderness Helena’s? Where do you draw the line?

“What if,” Helena says, and then drops the volume of her voice – Sarah’s voice, that is, trudging through that middleground.

“They will,” Sarah says. “They miss you.”

“Cosima will fix it,” Helena says, and Cosima watches Sarah’s face unfold for the first time with easy belief in her. Maybe she’s selfish, for wanting to keep it. Maybe.

“I know,” Sarah says. Helena’s face filled for the first time with lying. Cosima is going to switch them back, she’ll find a way, but – when she does, their faces will have new wrinkles on them. Helena with new frown lines. Sarah’s lips bitten open. Sad, the way they both wrinkle and rip themselves apart.

“I’m back,” Cosima says. “So! I’m going to try and run some tests, just to make sure you’re essentially the same on a molecular level – there’s actually some fascinating genetic divergence in identical twins and we _should_ be able to see whether or not you’re—”

She keeps talking – can’t help it, even though she’s watching it fly wildly over both of their heads. She just wants to bury the silence, bury the way Sarah had turned just a little to look at Helena when Helena lifted her hands from the pregnant belly like it was something shameful. She wants to make this all okay. She wants _science_ to be the magic wand Helena thinks it is, so she can wave it over both of them and put them back.

“Let’s do this,” she says.

The twins look at each other. Both of their faces are filled with something Cosima doesn’t know.

“Okay,” says Helena, and she looks away first.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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